


Gone

by writersstudy



Category: Pentagon (Korea Band)
Genre: Graphic depiction of torture, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, M/M, Poor Yuto just wants to be an angsty college student, Stockholm Syndrome, This is not a happy fic half of pentagon are very bad people, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-02-12 11:51:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12958596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writersstudy/pseuds/writersstudy
Summary: All Yuto wanted was to go home and curl up in bed and try not to think about the finals he was going to fail next week. He never quite made it there.Mafia/torture/Stockholm Syndrome AU





	1. Yuto

Yuto hated college. He hated living on his own, working a part time job, and the unreasonable amounts of homework his classes gave him. But more than anything, he hated finals. He was on his way back to his tiny apartment after his last class of the semester, grumbling bitterly under his breath about the paper that he didn’t have time to write for next week.

See, Yuto knew that he wouldn’t be able to just fly through college. He’d barely made it through high school academically and probably wouldn’t be at college if it weren’t for his baseball scholarship, especially because he had been all but cut off from his family. Whatever. He was in Seoul and he was doing mostly okay.

He didn’t notice it until he went to change his music. He had the sudden urge to listen to a sudden song and had paused the one he was on while he looked for it. Through his earbuds, he heard the scrapes of feet a few yards behind him. He slowed and the footsteps slowed. He sped up and so did they. With a furtive glance around, Yuto broke into a run, dialing Changgu’s number as he did so. The phone rang in his ears, but he could still hear the footsteps chasing after him. He was so distracted by his stalker that he didn’t even notice the man stepping out in front of him until he collided with him and fell to the ground. Yuto barely had time to glance up before he was yanked to his feet, his earbuds pulled roughly from his ears and phone from his hand. He struggled against the hands of the man in front of him as the one who had been chasing him caught up and took the phone, dropping it on the ground and stomping on it until it was beyond cracked.

Yuto was terrified. Was this a mugging? Was he going to be stabbed and left for dead on the street? What an awful way to go. It seemed that wasn’t the case as a soaked rag was clapped over his mouth and nose by a strong hand, a bitter smell invading his senses. He struggled for what seemed like ages, his body slowly becoming more and more sluggish as the chloroform kicked in. His attackers didn’t even wait until he was fully unconscious before heaving him up and into an unmarked van just a few hundred yards down the street.

Once Yuto was in the van, the taller of the two kidnappers got in the back with him while the other one ran up front and started to drive away. Yuto struggled weakly, but the kidnapper was able to easily overpower him. The man flipped him onto his stomach and pulled his arms behind his back, securing them tightly together with packing tape. He did the same to Yuto’s ankles and mouth before kicking him onto his back again. He dropped the still damp rag over the boy’s face before joining his companion up front.

Yuto was jostled back into consciousness when he was thrown roughly out of the van. It was pitch black out, which meant that they had been driving for hours. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to see much before one of the kidnappers grabbed him roughly by the hair and pulled him into what was obviously a cellar. Yuto whimpered in pain as he was thrown against a wall and the men finally removed their masks. If anything, seeing his kidnappers just made him more terrified.

“Go get the camera,” the shorter one said, his tone sharp. He was obviously the one in charge here. The taller kidnapper jogged off to somewhere else in the basement and Yuto could distantly hear him tossing things around. The remaining kidnapper approached Yuto, dropping to a squat in front of him. He grabbed Yuto’s face roughly, yanking it around as if inspecting him. Oh God, was Yuto about to be trafficked for sex?

“Here you go, Jinho hyung,” the taller captor panted as he ran up with a small camcorder in his hand. Yuto noticed the accent in his voice. Not Japanese like himself, but something close. Chinese perhaps? Those thoughts flew out of his head when the shorter kidnapper – Jinho – ripped the tape off of his face, making him cry out in shock and pain.

“Start recording, Yan,” Jinho ordered. Yuto heard a tiny beep from the camera before Jinho’s hand pulled back and came down hard across his face, making him gasp and his eyes smart up.

“Han Siwoo,” the kidnapper addressed loudly, speaking to the camera, “as you can see, the Red Tigers have your son, Han Seongho. We demand the equivalent of one million American dollars as well as capitulation of your territory in Seoul. If our demands are not met, we cannot guarantee that your son will remain this intact.” With that, he yanked Yuto’s head up by the hair, directing his face toward the camera, which Yan seemed to zoom in before shutting it off.

Why was Yuto’s Korean failing him now of all times? These men obviously thought he was someone that he was not, yet he couldn’t seem to produce the words to tell them so. In the back of his mind, a little voice told him that if he did so, they’d probably kill him. At least right now, they seemed invested in keeping him alive.

Jinho dropped Yuto’s head and the boy fell to the ground, unable to catch himself. Without warning, the man’s boot hit his stomach and Yuto groaned in pain, curling in on himself. Jinho was wearing steel toes. He kicked Yuto a few more times, each time harder than the last, until the boy coughed up blood onto the ground in front of his face.

“Go send the video file to Ko Shinwon,” Jinho ordered, turning away from Yuto, “we’ll see what we can get out of this piece of shit in the morning.” With that, they both left the basement up the stairs, leaving Yuto tied up in the dark. Yuto, to his credit, passed out.


	2. Changgu

Changgu was surprised to see Yuto’s name pop up on his screen as an incoming call. Normally, if the younger boy needed something, he would just text. Fortunately, Changgu was between classes so he answered, switching it to a video chat.

The first thing he heard was panting. The camera was below Yuto’s face and it seemed like he was running from something.

“Yuto? What’s wrong?” Changgu asked, a little concerned. Before the Japanese boy could say anything, he and his phone dropped to the ground. Changgu could hear gruff voices and Yuto yelling and struggling. Was his friend getting mugged? Cautiously, he turned on his screen recorder.

Suddenly, the view on the camera went flying and Changgu ended upon the ground again. He had just a moment to call Yuto’s name again before a large boot came down on the screen, sending feedback through the phone until it suddenly cut off. Changgu panicked, trying to call Yuto again, but with no luck.

 _Maybe he just got his wallet stolen_ , Changgu tried to tell himself. He was in panic mode as he sprinted to his car, glad to see that Hyunggu was already standing there.

“Hyung, is something wrong?” the freshman boy asked as Changgu ran up with his keys in hand. The upperclassmen motioned for him to get in the car.

“I just got a call from Yuto,” he explained as he started driving, “it looked like he was getting mugged, but then his phone broke so it cut off. I think someone was stomping on it.” Hyunggu immediately pulled his phone out.

“I’ll keep trying to call him. We should go see if he made it home then go to the police if he isn’t,” Hyunggu suggested. Changgu nodded, driving as quickly as he could toward Yuto’s tiny apartment. It wasn’t in the worst area, but it certainly wasn’t in the best.

He could see Hyunggu growing more worried as they drove, the younger boy biting at his lower lip. As soon as Changgu pulled up in front of the apartment, the freshman jumped out.

“Wait here,” he said, grabbing his spare key out of his backpack, “I’ll let you know if he’s there.” Hyunggu disappeared into the building, leaving Changgu in the idling car. The upperclassman tried to calm himself down, but he was growing more and more worried with every second that he didn’t hear from the Japanese boy.

Hyunggu came sprinting back out of the building just a minute or so later, face white as a sheet.

“I already pulled up the closest precinct,” he said as he climbed back into the car, “turn right at the next light.” Changgu threw the car into drive and listened carefully as Hyunggu gave him directions to the police.

He didn’t even bother locking his car in the precinct parking lot, opting instead to rush inside with the recording on his phone already pulled up. Hyunggu had gotten to the desk ahead of him and was already babbling about filling out a missing persons report and speaking directly with a detective because he was a criminal justice major and he knew that Yuto being an exchange student would be cause for concern and he needed to assure them that he wasn’t like that.

Changgu wasn’t quite sure when they ended up in a back office with Detectives Lee Hwitaek and Yang Hongseok, but they did somehow. Apparently, Hyunggu had just been that persistent.

“So, as upstanding as I’m sure your friend is, what evidence do you have that he didn’t just disappear to overstay his visa?” Detective Yang asked, leaning back against a counter behind him. Changgu shakily unlocked his phone and pulled up the recording of the video call from earlier, passing it to Detective Lee.

“He called me earlier,” he explained, “which is already weird, because he hates talking on the phone. There was a lot of struggling and stuff, so I started recording it in case…in case he didn’t come home.” Changgu had always been a cautious person like that. It was like he expected bad things to happen. Detective Lee beckoned Detective Yang over and they watched the video clip together. Detective Lee pursed his lips after it was over.

“We’ll need to download that off your phone for evidence,” he explained, “but how can you be sure that he didn’t do that himself?” Changgu held his hand out for the phone and scrubbed the video back a few seconds, pausing on a flash of a face above the boot.

“I know his face is covered, but I literally saw Yuto maybe half an hour before this happened and he certainly wasn’t blonde. You can’t achieve that color in that short of a time frame,” Changgu explained. He opened his pictures app and pulled up a picture the two of them had taken, timestamped just an hour before the video, showing Yuto in his black clothing with his natural black hair. Detective Lee pulled a legal pad out of his desk and jotted a few things down on it before pulling out a form as well.

“His cell phone number is in your phone, I assume? We’ll need to take it so we can try and ping the last known location,” he explained. He put the form on a clipboard and handed it to Changgu with a pen.

“Fill that out while we go and take the necessary things off your phone,” he said, “there’s a consent form right on top detailing exactly what we’re taking, but it’s just the video and the picture that you showed us. We can’t take anything else without a warrant.” Changgu nodded, giving the top form a quick scan before signing it and handing it off. He handed the missing persons form to Hyunggu. The younger boy knew Yuto’s information much better than he did.

“Should we call his parents?” the upperclassman asked quietly. He knew that Yuto had some issues at home, but he didn’t know how far they extended.

“He doesn’t speak with his parents anymore,” Hyunggu mumbled back as he traced the Japanese characters for Yuto’s name onto the paper, “I wouldn’t even know how to get ahold of them. He’s here on a sponsorship from the baseball coach.” That made Changgu curse.

“We have to let him know,” he grumbled, pulling out his phone to pull up the staff directory, “I know they don’t have practice this week, but who knows when we’ll get Yuto back and in what shape.” He found the coach’s number and left the room to make the call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	3. Yuto

Yuto let out another groan of pain as his back was struck again. He had lost count of how many blows Jinho had dealt out so far. He’d been woken up quite abruptly by a bucket of freezing cold water being dumped on him. The two kidnappers had cut his jacket off, which meant he was left dripping in just a thin white tee-shirt.

Yan - Yuto still didn’t know his full name – had strung him up with his bound hands over a hook and Jinho had soon taken to beating him. He assumed it was some sort of whip with the way it hit his back and dug into his skin through the shirt with every strike. By now, he was definitely bleeding. The room was only lit by a single dim lightbulb and the recording light of the camera across the room.

The cold water still soaking his shirt was starting to finally numb and dull the pain, rather than contribute to it, and Yuto’s quieting cries of pain must have alerted Jinho because the whipping soon stopped.

“Tell me about the Gangnam project,” Jinho demanded for what must have been the tenth time since they’d started. Yuto grunted.

“I already told you I don’t know anything,” he said through gritted teeth. He hadn’t told the two that he wasn’t Han Seongho, just that he knew nothing of the gang’s activities. Han Seongho must have been higher up in the gang’s hierarchy than he assumed, because the two weren’t buying it.

The next second, Yuto’s back erupted in pain as Jinho took a knife and dug it into the shallow wounds, dragging it all the way down his back. His façade slipped and he started mubbling prayers in Japanese. He couldn’t think of anything else.

“What are you saying, you little fuck?” Jinho hissed in his ear, pulling the knife out and digging it into his shoulder instead. He left it there as he rounded his captive and grabbed his face roughly. The boy wasn’t even paying attention, rendered incoherent in pain. Angrily, Jinho grabbed the knife again and dragged down the side of the boy’s face before dropping it on the ground.

“Take care of his wounds, Yan,” he called as he walked away, heading for the stairs, “we need him alive. I’ll see what progress we can make after lunch. And don’t let him down. In fact, pull him up a bit higher if you can.” The heavy door slammed and then Yuto was left alone with the tall Chinese assailant. There was a small beep as the camera shut off then Yan stepped into his field of vision.

“You are not Han Seongho,” he said evenly and Yuto gritted his teeth.

“What fucking gave it away?” he spat in stuttered Mandarin. Yan didn’t react beyond raising his eyebrows.

“I’ve spent the last three months of my life learning everything there is to know about Han Seongho. He doesn’t speak anything but Korean,” he replied in kind, stepping away from Yuto to retrieve a first aid kit.

“Maybe you should’ve studied his face a little more,” Yuto gritted out. He groaned when a winch squealed and his arms were pulled further over his head, ripping the wounds on his back even more.

Yan’s hands were surprisingly gentle as he touched Yuto’s back. He pressed rags against the open wounds, trying to soak up most of the blood before he bandaged it. Yuto could hear the click of a camera and supposed they needed evidence of this torture to send to whoever they thought would come looking for him.

Yuto wondered if his friends had noticed his absence yet. He’d tried to make contact with Changgu as he was running away from Yan and Jinho, but who knows if it had gone through. He could hope that they were looking for him but until someone actually showed up, he had no way of knowing.

“So who are you then, if you aren’t Han Seongho?” Yan asked suddenly as he finally starting laying bandages across Yuto’s wounds.

“Adachi Yuto,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Are you a decoy?” Yan asked.

“I’m a foreign exchange student,” Yuto replied stubbornly. Even if he was a decoy, he wasn’t likely to admit it to the men who held him.

“You know,” Yan said lightly, “if Jinho ge finds out that you have no connection to Han, he’s likely to keep you here for months until he either kills you or breaks you. Acting like a decoy will give you a much better chance of getting out of here.” Yuto groaned again as he patted the bandages down with more force than necessary.

“Why do you care?” Yuto asked through gritted teeth.

“I don’t want to be doing this,” Yan said, voice dropping to a whisper, “I’m indebted to Jinho. It’s either help him or die and I’d like to get back to China outside of a wooden box.” Yuto couldn’t even imagine what had gotten Yan involved with such a violent person to begin with.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, dropping his head as Yan’s hand reached for it. He grunted it was yanked back up and pressure applied to the cut there. “No one will come looking for me unless my friends go to the police, and I’m sure you two have made sure they won’t find anything.”

“Oh, they’ll come. Han is known for having a bit of a soft spot,” Yan said confidently as he let Yuto’s head drop again. He gathered the dirtied rags and made his way toward the stairs, stopping to grab the SD card from the camera. Yuto could hear the cruel smile in his voice as he shut off the lights.

“They’ll send Dawnie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	4. Hyojong

Hyojong whistled to himself as he sauntered into the warehouse. Shinwon had called him a few hours earlier to tell him that the boss needed to see him immediately, so naturally he’d taken his sweet-ass time kicking his partner of the night out of his apartment - after a morning round, of course - and getting himself ready.

“Dawnie, I’m pretty sure I called you hours ago,” the doctor said as he fell in step with the hitman. Hyojong merely smirked and shrugged.

“I was busy,” he said with a shit-eating grin. Shinwon rolled his eyes and led the way into the boss’s office.

“E’Dawn,” Han Siwoo said once the door was closed. His office, as usual, was bathed in darkness. It was a tactic used so his newer operatives couldn’t identify him if they were caught.

“Sir,” Hyojong replied as he tossed himself into a chair. He could see the glint of the older man rolling his eyes and a grin broke across his face. Shinwon may be Han’s right-hand man, but Hyojong was practically his son. Next to them a screen flickered on, immediately playing a video. On the screen, he saw a tiny man that could only be Jo Jinho, recon man for the Red Tigers, stalk towards another man who was tied up on the floor. Jinho hit the defenseless man and then turned to face the camera with a nasty smirk painted across his face.

“Jinho got a promotion,” he noted as the man started talking. Jinho yelled into the camera, demanding a ransom for Han Seongho, the boss’s son. At the end of the video, he grabbed the man on the floor by his hair and yanked his head up.

“Well, that’s not Seongho,” Hyojong said lightly.

“Correct,” the boss said, and the screen popped up with another video, this time a news clip.

“We have a missing persons case out of Dongguk University in Jung-gu this morning,” the anchor said as a few pictures replaced her face on screen, “Adachi Yuto, a Japanese exchange student and freshman player on the university’s baseball team, was reported missing last night after a friend of his received a video call showing him being assaulted.” A video clip played, not showing much due to its angle from the ground, then froze at the end where a bit of blonde hair could be seen in the upper righthand corner.

“Police have not yet been able to pinpoint where Adachi disappeared from, but are on the lookout for a blonde man about 185 centimeters tall. Adachi was last seen walking from the university to his apartment and was wearing black jeans, a white tee shirt, a black hoodie, and a Dongguk University baseball cap. He is 184 centimeters tall and has black hair. Anyone with information should contact the police.” The screen went black and the boss slid a file toward Hyojong.

“Shinwon received the first video this morning and this news report confirmed that the Red Tigers do indeed have Adachi Yuto in their possession. Normally, I wouldn’t care, but Shinwon has convinced me that this is a good opportunity to send a message. Take out Jo and whoever’s helping him and dispose of Adachi separately. Any other videos that Jo sends will be passed along to you.” Hyojong took the file and saluted the boss before leaving the office. He flipped through it as he walked out of the warehouse. It had a number of pictures in it, including the final shot of the video call. It seemed that his apartment wasn’t far from Hyojong’s own, so the hitman decided to take a walk and see if he could figure out where Adachi was attacked.

Yuto’s apartment building was a little rundown, but mostly unassuming. The file the boss had given him told Hyojong that Yuto hadn’t made it back there, so he pulled up the university on his GPS and started walking in that direction. He had the screenshot from the video in his hand and it wasn’t long before he noticed something behind the blonde attacker’s head. There was a red light, not from a traffic light but from a storefront sign. That made his walk much quicker as he could weed out the areas that definitely weren’t right. Unfortunately, there were police everywhere, obviously looking for any evidence of Yuto’s presence. Hyojong tugged his turtleneck up over his lower face and kept his head down.

Hyojong hit gold not even five minutes later when he found a phone laying in the gutter. The screen was cracked, as if it had been stepped on, and the store it was in front of had a red awning. There were even a pair of earbuds still attached. He snatched it up, wiping the dirty water off his hand, and had just tucked the sim card into a secret pocket in his jacket when he heard a shout. Looking up, he saw his least favorite detectives heading toward him - Lee Hwitaek and Yang Hongseok.

“We should’ve known he’d be here, Hongseok,” Hwitaek sneered as the pair walked towards Hyojong, “this part of town does have a rat problem." 

“I just came to observe Seoul’s finest detectives at work,” Hyojong responded nonchalantly as he stuck his hands in his pockets.

“We should book you for loitering,” Hwitaek threatened, making Hyojong laugh.

“Fine by me,” he said, “I love spending my day harassing you two.” Both detectives frowned and Hwitaek rolled his eyes in annoyance.

“Empty your pockets, Kim,” Hongseok said and Hyojong complied, holding up a lighter and cigarettes in one hand and the busted phone in the other. His own phone was in the inside pocket of his jacket.

“What d’you got there?” Hongseok asked, gesturing at the phone. Hyojong sighed dramatically as he shoved the other items back in his pocket.

“It fell out of my pocket into the gutter then I stepped on it,” he said, playing up his sadness. They seemed to buy it, but then Hyojong felt the left side of his chest start to buzz before his actual phone rang loudly.

“Or not,” he said before taking off into the alley next to them. The detectives quickly ran after him, but could not quite catch up. He stuffed the phone back into his pocket and zipped it before scaling the fence at the end and taking off across the rooftops of the various warehouses in the area. Hyojong laughed as he realized the detectives had been stopped by the fence and continued carefully maneuvering the rooftops of Jangchungdong. The blonde could hear indistinguishable shouting following him and grinned maniacally before suddenly changing direction, hopping down some fire escapes and ducking into an alcove as a horde of policemen ran past the alleyway. Once they were gone, Hyojong brushed off his clothing and tugged open the cellar entrance hidden under a few bags of trash and ducked inside. The hitman tossed the phone on top of some papers and pulled the sim card out of his jacket. Grabbing an energy drink out of the fridge, he sauntered to his desk twirling the sim card in his hand. Hyojong plugged the card into his computer and plopped down in the desk chair.

“Alright, Adachi Yuto, let’s see what you can tell me,” he whispered to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are always welcome!


	5. Yuto

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really short, sorry!

Yuto flinched and whimpered as he felt something brush across his abdomen. He jumped as the headphones over his ears changed their tune and the sounds of metal scraping together filled his ears instead of just white noise. Yuto shivered as something cold dragged against the back of his neck. The headphones went silent and Yuto held his breath in a desperate attempt to hear who was with him. J

inho had come storming down the stairs into the basement a few hours after Yan had left, carrying a pair of headphones and a roll of duct tape with the younger man scurrying behind him. Yan had given Yuto an apologetic look before he started wrapping the tape around his head, covering his eyes. They had cut off his soaked and bloody shirt, leaving him shivering in the cold basement. Finally, they had slid the headphones over his ears, effectively rendering him deaf to what was happening around him. At first, just white noise had filtered through the headphones, but that soon switched to scraping metal and then a sound like nails on a chalkboard. The sounds, combined with random intermittent touches and hits, soon had Yuto sobbing in fear.

The sounds suddenly cut off and Yuto shrieked as he felt a hand close loosely around his throat. Whoever it was had him from a low angle, so he could only assume it was Jinho. He could hear his own sobs filtered through the headphones when the man’s voice suddenly cut in.

“Are you ready to fucking talk yet or do I need to keep going?” Yuto sobbed louder and shook his head, whimpering when his head snapped to the side as the man slapped him.

“I d-don’t know anything,” he cried out shakily. He heard a small growl and braced himself for another hit, but it never landed.

“You’re not getting anywhere,” he heard Yan say faintly, “maybe you should leave him til tomorrow.” Yuto could feel the hesitation in Jinho’s grip, but the man eventually let go of his throat, leaving Yuto to drop his head with another sob.

“Fine,” he spat, “consider yourself lucky.” The sounds started up again and Yuto flinched. He could swear that he could feel something run across his foot and something touch his waist. The physical torture he could handle, but this? This would break him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments always appreciated!


	6. An

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while! I tried to make this chapter longer to make up for how short the last one was.

Yuto was hanging limply from his bonds when An came down the stairs the next morning. His head had lolled to the side, but the Chinese man could at least tell that he was breathing. The headphones had fallen off at some point, because they were on the floor at Yuto’s feet. 

An set the bottle of water on the ground and reached up to unhook Yuto’s hands from the ceiling. He carefully lowered the younger man to the ground and pulled him over to the wall without injuring him further. Once he had Yuto propped up, he grabbed the water bottle again. Tilting the injured man’s head back, he did his best to pour the water down his throat without choking him. 

Once half the bottle was gone, he set it to the side and pulled a vial and syringe out of his pocket. He carefully pulled the clear medicine into the syringe until he had the correct amount then cast the bottle aside. After ripping open an alcohol pad and cleaning off part of Yuto’s arm, he lined the needle up and injected the younger man. An recapped the syringe once it was empty and dropped it to the ground so he could use both hands to pull the tape off of Yuto’s eyes and turn him around. Once Yuto was settled with his forehead leaning against the wall to keep him upright, An got up to get a first aid kit from the other side of the room. Once he had the kit, he got to work changing the bandages on Yuto’s back.

The Chinese man finished bandaging Yuto’s back before carefully moving him to lean back against the wall again. An was cleaning up his supplies when he heard a soft groan behind him. Yuto’s eyes cracked open just as An turned back toward him and he flinched back with a whimper. Despite how weak he was, his arms still came up to shakily block his face.

“I’m not gonna hit you,” An said softly. He was sitting a foot away from Yuto and watched him for a moment before continuing to put away his stuff.

“What is that?” Yuto asked just as he picked up the empty medicine vial, “what the fuck did you give me?”

“Glucagon,” An replied simply, “to get your blood sugar back up. Jinho hyung wouldn’t let me bring you any food, so it was the next best thing.” He held the vial out to Yuto, inviting him to look at the label. The younger man instinctively flinched away before reaching for it with a shaky hand. He blinked a few times before squinting to read the tiny words.

“Why are you suddenly helping me?” he whispered, holding the vial out for An to take.

“I’ve been doing the best I can the entire time,” An said as he finished putting his supplies away, “I want to be here just as much as you do, trust me.” Yuto looked up at him with guarded eyes.

“How am I supposed to even think of doing that?” he asked. An tossed his first aid kit to the side and got up to find a blanket for the shivering student. Yuto flinched again when he moved but seemed grateful for any warmth the tiny threadbare quilt could give him.

“My name is Yan An. I’m here because I owe Jinho a debt. I borrowed money to go to medical school and I couldn’t pay it back on time, so I have to keep his torture victims alive until he decides I’ve paid it off. There is even more of a metaphorical gun to my head than there is to yours, Yuto-ssi.” Just as An finished talking, the door at the top of the stairs swung open and Jinho appeared. An quickly ripped the blanket off of Yuto and tossed it to the side with his first aid kit.

“Good morning, Seongho-ssi,” Jinho sing-songed as he made his way down the stairs, “how are you feeling this morning?” Yuto was visibly shaking as he stared up at Jinho, who came and crouched in front of him.

“We’re gonna do things differently today, okay?” he said, reaching out to pet Yuto’s hair as the Japanese man cringed away, “Yan already took care of your injuries and now we’re gonna get you some food and in return, you can tell us what you know about the Gangnam project!” Yuto seemed resigned as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.

“I really know don’t know anything,” he whispered. There was a pause then a crack as Jinho slapped him hard across the face, making even An cringe. 

“I tried to be nice to you, Han,” Jinho said as he stood up and strode across the room, “I really did. Yan, get our guest a chair. Grab the card table too.” An grabbed a chair and dragged it to the center of the room, hauling Yuto up by his armpits and dumping him in it with a murmured apology. He didn’t like where this was going. Jinho was rooting through a toolbox near the wall and came back with a knife as An dragged a small table over.

“We’re gonna play a game,” he told Yuto, “you have all your fingers. The knife,” he slammed Yuto’s hand on the table so it laid flat, palm down, and drove the knife between his thumb and index finger, “goes chop, chop, chop. If you tell me something I don’t want to hear,” he pulled the knife out of the wood, “your fingers will come off. Understand?” Yuto nodded shakily. He flexed his fingers before laying his hand on the table again, spreading his fingers as far as he could. He would much rather that knife end up in a finger than between his eyeballs. 

“Good!” Jinho crowed happily. He started moving the knife in between the student’s fingers and Yuto almost had to laugh. It was the fucking knife game.   
\---  
“Answer the fucking question, Han!” Jinho bellowed. Yuto’s eyes were locked on his hand, which was already sporting a few nicks and cuts. 

“I. Don’t. Know!” he said roughly, before screaming as Jinho’s knife drove right into the center of his index finger. The smaller man pulled the knife out and laughed as blood covered Yuto’s hand. 

“Oh, poor Seongho,” he cooed, “and your poor, poor finger. There’s no point in keeping a bum finger. We might as well,” the knife came down again, “just take it off.” Yuto screamed again, thrashing against the bonds holding him to the chair.

“Patch him up, Yan,” Jinho said, dropping the bloody knife on the ground next to Yuto’s detached finger. An rushed over, first aid kit already in hand, and untied the ropes around Yuto’s left wrist. 

“Okay, okay, it’s a clean cut, you still have the first segment, we just have to stitch it up,” he said, already pulling a surgical needle out of his kit.

“No,” Jinho said sharply, “cauterize it,” An hesitated, “cauterize it, Yan!” An rushed to put the needle back in his kit and shakily pulled a lighter out of his kit. 

“Can I at least give him a rag?” An asked, “he’ll be no good to us if he bites his tongue off.” JInho sighed and waved a hand, allowing An to shove a somewhat-clean rag in Yuto’s mouth before flicking the lighter on and holding it to the end of his finger. It took him about five minutes to get the wound fully closed, and the captive was sobbing uncontrollably by the end of it.

“Are you ready to talk yet, Han?” Jinho asked, shoving An out of the way and ripping the rag from between Yuto’s teeth. An watched as Yuto took a few deep breaths and shook his head, tears still pouring down his cheeks. Jinho’s face hardened and he spun to face An. 

“Get me a stronger table,” he hissed, “we’re going to drag him until he cracks.” An cleared all the tools off the table on the other side of the basement and dragged it to the center of the room. Together, he and Jinho pulled a thrashing Yuto out of the chair and got him secured to the table.

“Where’d that rag go?” Jinho asked and An shoved it into his hand, “and your water jug?” An passed that over as well. Jinho rolled up his sleeves and laid the rag over Yuto’s face.

“Put pressure on the other side so he can’t knock it off,” Jinho ordered and An rounded the table to put his weight on the edge of the rag. He put pressure on his own side and, without any further ado, poured half of the bottle of water over the rag. Yuto choked immediately, struggling to breathe without inhaling water, and Jinho let him go a full thirty seconds before pulling the rag off from his side. Yuto panted and coughed when he did so but refused to say anything, so Jinho pulled the rag back tightly and poured out the rest of the water. This time, he waited forty-five seconds before pulling it back.

“We’re out of water,” he said, “cover his mouth and nose, An. Now!” An rushed to comply, sensing that Jinho was on some sort of rampage. When An finally pulled his hand off, Yuto gasped loudly before speaking.

“I’m not - I’m not Han Seongho,” he rushed out, “I r-really don’t know anything. Pl-Please, Jinho-ssi, I just wanna go home.” Jinho stood stock still.

“Not...Not Han Seongho?” he said, voice deathly quiet, “then who the fuck is he, Yan An?” The small man turned to the med student, who backed away with his hands raised.

“Adachi Yuto, he’s a Japanese national, plays baseball for Dongguk, Jinho please,” he rushed out, “I just found out this morning, I wanted to tell you but there was no time.” Jinho turned back to the man tied to the table.

“Baseball, huh?” he asked, leaning over Yuto’s shaking form, “you know what we do to liars, Yuto-ssi?” He lifted up the same knife he used to take off Yuto’s finger.

“We kill what they love and then we hunt them down and kill them too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @sunnyuto_  
> Tumblr: @sunnyuto


	7. Yuto

Yuto was delirious with pain and fear. He had no idea what Jinho was planning to do to him, but he knew it was going to hurt. At this point, Yuto no longer cared about going home. He simply wanted out, whether that meant escape or death, and it was looking more and more like it meant death.

Jinho was scarily quiet as he set up a bunch of tools that Yuto couldn’t see. He had driven knives into the table on either side of the Japanese man’s head to keep his gaze from wandering, so all that Yuto could see was An hovering nervously in the corner of his periphery.

“Come here and hold his hand still,” Jinho ordered shortly and An moved to where Yuto could no longer see him. His right arm was twisted at a painful angle to make it lay flat on the table. An’s hand held his own, leaving his wrist exposed for Jinho.

Yuto hissed in pain when the first cut was made into his arm. He could feel blood dripping over his arm onto the table, but he was almost grateful for it. If he passed out, he wouldn’t have to feel any of this. His hand twitched as Jinho made another cut on the other side of his wrist and An tightened his grip. That was almost a comfort to Yuto, knowing that there was someone else being tortured here.

Jinho made a third incision to connect the first two and started to slowly peel the skin away from the muscle underneath. Yuto, in his delirium, couldn’t help the pained scream that left his throat. It felt like his arm was on fire and he was just wishing that he fell unconscious soon.

Feeling Jinho tug on his tendons was possibly the most terrifying thing that had happened to Yuto so far. His fingers bent against his will before there was a sharp pain and they fell limp. Jinho wasn’t cutting off the limb like he had with Yuto’s finger; instead, he was removing his ability to use it. It was an injury that would haunt Yuto much more, and a good sign that the smaller man was considering letting him go.

Yuto was barely aware of the pain as Jinho continued to slice each individual tendon in his right wrist, slowly but surely taking away his ability to use that hand at all. Tears dripped down Yuto’s cheeks, though he wasn’t sure when they started or how he was even hydrated enough to produce them.

“Clean this mess up,” Jinho ordered An coldly, stepping away from the table and disappearing upstairs. Yuto’s blood dripped from his fingers.

The pain seemed to all hit Yuto at once as soon as Jinho was gone and he sobbed openly as he An dropped his hand in favor of stitching up and bandaging his arm. The Chinese man mumbled to him quietly the entire time, spewing niceties that Yuto was sure would have calmed him down if he wasn’t so sure of his imminent death. Although it would be a relief from the pain, it was still a terrifying prospect.

“I think he’s going to give you a chance to escape,” An said quietly as he helped Yuto sit up and cradle his limp hand.

“I’d rather he just get it over with and kill me already,” Yuto slurred, feeling the blood loss finally hit him now that he was upright. Looking down at the table, he figured he had lost less than he thought, but it was hard to tell.

“Get up,” Jinho barked as he reappeared on the stairs. There was a pistol in his hand, which he pointed at Yuto as soon as he was on level ground. The Japanese man got to his feet, before crumpling right to the ground. An hurriedly helped him to his feet and supported his weight on one shoulder. Jinho gestured for them to move toward the heavy metal door at the back of the basement and An all but dragged Yuto outside. He dropped Yuto in the grass next to the walkway. The Japanese man struggled to get to his feet, shivering in the cold winter air. He was still wet and mostly naked.

“Here’s the deal,” Jinho said, stepping closer, “I’m gonna let you run and you’re gonna hope I don’t catch you.” Yuto eyes widened when he managed to process what the man had said and he stumbled backward, already trying to get away from his attacker.

“I’ll give you a...two minute head start,” the shorter man said before waving Yuto off and turning away. The Japanese man didn’t waste any time. Without thinking, he turned and took off toward the woods, stumbling in the dark. It was pitch black and Yuto’s vision was already swimming to begin with. He tripped over rocks and sticks, sending himself careening into trees.

In the distance, Yuto thought he saw a light. He aimed for it as best as he could, hoping it was the road and not the house that he had just escaped from. As he got closer, he started losing energy. His bandages had long since fallen off and he could see his own blood glinting off the snow below him from the reopened wounds on his back. He knew then that he would never have a chance to get away before Jinho found him.

Yuto finally stumbled out of the woods and his legs finally gave out. He was going to die here, either from the cold or Jinho’s bullet. Coughing, he struggled to his knees and forced his eyes to stay open. He finally realized that he had reached the light he had been following. It was a car, but there didn’t appear to be anyone inside.

The cocking of a gun seemed to echo around Yuto. He saw a short man step out from behind the vehicle, pistol in hand, but his vision was too blurred to make out who it was. His body slumped in relief. This would finally all be over. His eyes closed and twin tears rolled down his cheeks before he lost consciousness altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, I am so sorry that it took me literally almost seven months to update this. I had a very involved internship last semester, I was working two jobs and moving over the summer, and now this semester has started off crazy as well. This chapter is intentionally short because the scene had to be split into two parts for a perspective change, so hopefully it won't be long before I get the second part up.


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